Forbidden Reading

Before the Journey

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

After the Journey

‘You’re a dirty little bitch, aren’t you?’

Justine held herself still when she heard the voice.

The vault was underground, designed without windows and lightless save for those few stray rays that filtered from the floors above. It was always a challenge to find the light switch and, as her fingertips scoured against the aged wood panelling, she began to believe that this time her hand wouldn’t fall on the vital plastic button. Her heart raced, the inside of her mouth turned bone dry, and she struggled not to panic at the thought of being trapped in the unlit room with a menacing stranger.

‘You’re a dirty little bitch, aren’t you? You’re a dirty little bitch who needs a damned good thrashing. Is that why you’ve come down here? Have you come down here to have your backside thrashed?’

Justine didn’t know who had spoken – she couldn’t decide if it was a male or female voice – but she understood every syllable of the filthy suggestions. Fighting to appear brave, not wanting to be intimidated by the intangible combination of darkness, rude words and her own apprehension, she drew a deep breath and squinted into the shadows. ‘Who is that? What are you doing in here? Don’t you know this is Mrs Weiss’s personal vault? Only authorised personnel are permitted in here.’

‘Take off your blouse, Justine,’ the voice whispered slyly. ‘Let me see your breasts.’

She considered running then shunned the idea. The timer switch for the hall had already blinked off and everything behind her was unilluminated gloom. If she did choose to run, Justine knew she faced a terrifying race along a narrow passage. When, or if, she reached the end of the corridor, there would follow a frantic search for the right key from her bunch as she tried to open the locked door that led back to the sanctuary of the library. Fear threatened to overwhelm her and she struggled to find the light switch before the mounting panic won.

‘Go on, Justine,’ the voice coaxed. ‘Take off your blouse. Show me your tits. I’m aching to see them. Don’t you want to show them off to me?’

From out of nowhere a hand touched her breast. Unseen fingers stroked the swell of one orb and her nipple pulsed softly as though responding to the vile stimulation. Startled by the contact, Justine dropped her keys to the floor. The jangle of metal striking stone was drowned out by her exclamation of despair and surprise. Without the keys she had no way of escaping the vault and, in the darkness, she had little hope of finding the fallen keys. Her search for the light switch was renewed with almost frenzied haste.

‘Go on,’ the voice insisted. ‘Take your blouse off and show them to me.’

Justine still couldn’t decide whether the voice was male or female – or if there was something familiar in the tone or if that was just her imagination – but those details were immaterial. Her main objectives were to turn on the light switch, find her keys, and finally flee from the vault as fast as she was able. She repeated those three goals inside her head like a personal mantra for survival.

Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run
.

Going into the vault was her least favourite part of a job that had lost its allure many months earlier. Working in the library she had soon grown weary of cataloguing endless tomes – filing, stamping, repairing, re-filing and re-cataloguing – but those elements of her day-to-day routine were manageable even if their monotony had transcended the mundane. A long time before this incident, well before she had found herself trapped in the inescapable vault with an unknown stranger, her weekly visit there had been the one chore that she truly dreaded.

‘Unfasten a couple of buttons,’ the voice urged. ‘Show me a little cleavage. I want to see the milky white pallor of your tits so I can picture sinking my teeth into them. I’d love to bite you, Justine. I’d truly love to taste your ripe, plump flesh.’

Justine shivered and placed a defensive hand across her chest.

Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run
.

She continued to claw at the wall, terror making her ill as she scrabbled to find the switch, but she kept her other hand fixed firmly over her breasts. The insidious touch she had suffered before had been unnerving and she was determined not to feel that loathsome caress for a second time.

Almost as though the stranger understood her fears, a hand traced against her backside and squeezed a buttock. ‘Be a good girl and take your blouse off, Justine. I’m aching to get a proper look at you.’

Forgetting her search for the light switch, Justine slapped the hand away and pressed her back against the wall. She couldn’t recall being more terrified. Her breath came in rapid, nervous gasps, pure adrenaline pounded through her veins, and her skin was suddenly clammy with perspiration.

Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run. Light, keys, run
.

She tried to focus on her three-step plan for escape but it was impossible to think past her hatred of the room that had now become her prison. She had always despised the vault, and finding herself trapped within its secured walls was like the realisation of her every nightmare. The library’s patron, the local philanthropist Mrs Weiss, retained this vault beneath the main building for her own private collection. It was used to house a spectacular hoard of rare works, first editions and original manuscripts. There were a couple of handwritten Wordsworth poems, untidily made priceless by their fascinating corrections, additions and deletions; complete collections of Dickens, Poe and Hemingway in first editions, several of the titles signed by the authors; as well as a host of personal diaries from those historical luminaries whom Mrs Weiss revered. Yet, in spite of the priceless treasures it contained, and going against her professional appreciation of their importance, Justine still hated the vault.

‘Get them out for me, Justine. I want to see them. I need to touch them.’

The room was always claustrophobically dark. Even when the meagre lights were switched on the shifting shadows held dominion over its airless realm. And there was something in the solitude and silence that made Justine yearn for the comparative bustle and companionship of the library above. But it wasn’t just the loneliness or the lack of light that she truly disliked. Being honest with herself, she had never understood the point of the room. For a book-lover like Justine, keeping such a marvellous collection hidden in the lightless gloom of the vault seemed tantamount to sacrilege.

‘Take your blouse off, Justine, and then I’ll turn the light on. How does that sound for a fair exchange?’

‘Who are you?’ She could hear the spiralling lilt of hysteria in her tone and tried desperately to squash it before it became too noticeable. ‘Who are you? What are you doing in here? And why are you tormenting me like this?’

‘Take your blouse off.’ The whispered instruction returned from the depths of the shadows. ‘Do that and I’ll turn the light on.’

‘I don’t want to take my blouse off,’ Justine complained.

‘Maybe you don’t want to,’ the voice agreed. ‘But you’ll do it if you want me to switch the light on. Why don’t you give in now and save us both the trouble of this senseless argument?’

She held her breath for a moment, wishing she could think of an appropriate reply, but only one response seemed right. She didn’t want to take her blouse off but she was less inclined to spend any longer in the vault than was absolutely necessary. Sure she had no other option, quietly promising herself that she would allow things to go no further than this one simple act of acquiescence, Justine said, ‘All right. I’ll take it off.’

The stranger drew an excited breath and, for the first time, Justine began to suspect that she might be trapped in the vault with a woman. She didn’t know where the idea came from – she couldn’t understand how it was possible to ascertain the stranger’s sex from an excited breath when she hadn’t been able to detect that much from the insidious questions and lewd suggestions – but she felt sure she was right. The thought did nothing to help ease her nerves or stop her fingers from trembling as she tried to release the buttons from her blouse, nor did it do anything to curtail her blushes as she shrugged the cotton garment from her shoulders.

‘Beautiful,’ the voice whispered. ‘Truly beautiful. Now take off the bra.’

‘You said you’d turn the light on,’ Justine exclaimed. ‘You said, if I took off my blouse, you’d turn the light on. You promised.’